DID YOU READ

List: 2008’s Most Covetable DVD Box Sets

DVD box sets remain the go-to gift for any film fan in your life — they come in a range of sizes and prices, so that you can scale up or down depending on how much you like the recipient, and this time of year they’re often discounted for last-minute holiday shoppers (and those treating themselves to a present). Here are the new or revamped box sets from 2008 that we’ve been eyeing:

“Mystery Science Theater 3000″‘s inaugural release from Shout Factory (after many years and discs with Rhino Records) celebrates the show’s 20th anniversary with a spiffy box set featuring four never-released-to-DVD episodes: “Werewolf” (with the “great” Joe Estevez), “Future War,” “First Spaceship on Venus” and the long-awaited and highly coveted “Laserblast,” the final episode on Comedy Central. The set also includes an 80-minute documentary on the show’s MSTory, and footage from a panel from this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con, where the series’ various cast and creative teams assembled publicly for the first time in years (hosts Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson appear in public together about as often as Clark Kent and Superman). By my count, I already own 31 episodes of “Mystery Science Theater,” somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 hours of bad movie riffing, in various home entertainment formats — I’ve even got a couple on both VHS and DVD — but I’m still embarrassingly excited about this set, particularly the limited edition version that comes with a Crow T. Robot mini-bust.

Universal Pictures created some of the most famous monsters to be seared onto celluloid and our collective movie memory — Chaney’s “Phantom of the Opera” and “Wolf Man,” Karloff’s “Frankenstein,” Lugosi’s “Dracula” — absolutely none of which appear on this ten-disc set of dreckier, campier and excellently entertaining selections harvested mainly from the studio’s ’50s B-movie library. Instead, you have giant insects springing from scientific experiments gone wrong (“Tarantula”) or glaciers melting (“The Deadly Mantis”); predatory females (Faith Domergue as a vengeful snake woman in “Cult of the Cobra,” Coleen Gray as an aging housewife harvesting pineal glands for youth in “The Leech Woman”); underground kingdoms of dinosaurs (“The Land Unknown”) or Sumerian albinos (“The Mole People”) and miniaturization both mysterious (“The Incredible Shrinking Man”) and intentional (“Dr. Cyclops”). And at the price, it’s a deal that can’t be beat — the glimpse of a strikingly young Clint Eastwood as an unnamed “Jet Squadron Leader” in “Tarantula” alone makes it worth your while.

If you’ve got to buy a present for a teenager (or anyone, really) who’s starting to take an interest in classic arthouse cinema, you can’t go wrong with “10 Years of Rialto Pictures,” a streamlined ten-film set from the Criterion Collection commemorating the tin anniversary of the great repertory distributor founded in 1997 by Film Forum programmer Bruce Goldstein. You won’t get much in the way of extras, there are a few surprising omissions (“The Battle of Algiers,” for example) and the set can never recreate the fun of seeing these films in the Forum’s musty ambiance surrounded by rabid cinephiles. Nevertheless, it’s a great introduction to many of the giants of international filmmaking, from Buñuel (“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”) to Bresson (“Au Hasard Balthazar”) to Godard (“Band of Outsiders”). Plus, if you’re trying to acquaint a skeptic with old movies, the lineup isn’t too heavy or highfalutin’, with choices that touch on film noir (Jules Dassin’s “Rififi”), thrillers (Carol Reed’s “The Third Man”) and dark comedy (Alberto Lattuada’s “Mafioso”).

If the ten-discer above seems a little much, Criterion also has a lighter-weight six-disc box of selections from their Janus Films-fueled Essential Art House collection. “Vol. 1” is a bite-sized encapsulation of the hefty, covetable and, for most, utterly out of reach 50-film $850 “Essential Art House” bound-book set that came out two years ago to be drooled over by many a movielovers, ourselves included. Offered in this first volume breakdown are four unimpeachable arthouse classics — Bergman’s “Wild Strawberries,” Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” and Renoir’s “Grand Illusion” — along with two slightly edgier choices, Polanski’s masterfully claustrophobic debut “Knife in the Water” and the 1963 adaptation of “Lord of the Flies.” It’s another fine starter kit for someone who’s just starting to explore arthouse film, and one that, while again, doesn’t come with many of the expected extras, does break down to a per-disc average that’s around half the cost of the typical Criterion release.

With Clint Eastwood’s turn as a crotchety, gun-toting racist in the new “Gran Torino” drawing comparisons to his iconic maverick cop Inspector Harry Callahan, it’s a great time to reexamine the “Dirty Harry” series, and the “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” makes a convenient one-stop shop. You get all five “Dirty Harry”s, each with its own new commentary track and a variety of other new-to-the-set extras, including a feature-length documentary on Eastwood’s career, “Out of the Shadows.” None of the sequels matched Don Siegel’s original for brains or brawn, but the franchise did a better job than many of its contemporaries — like, say, the “Death Wish”es — of refusing to pander to a certain segment of their audience by devolving into a succession of brainless kill-fests. Even late entries like the Eastwood-directed “Sudden Impact” from 1983 continued and expanded the first film’s exploration into the nature of and limits to justice, in a story that saw Harry on the trail of a vengeful rape victim. The coolest-slash-goofiest extra: a replica wallet and police ID, I guess so you can run around like a lunatic, screaming at people “Go ahead: make my day…what? No officer, it’s not my fault! Blame the people at Warner Home Video!”

Let’s get this out there off the bat: There are only a quartet of features contained in this ten-disc set, put out by David Lynch’s own Absurda label — “Eraserhead,” “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet” and “Wild at Heart,” the director’s first four, sans “Dune,” and all already available on DVD. But you’re not being asked to plop down such a significant chunk of change for the movies, you’re being asked to do it for the endless oddities with which they come swaddled: interviews with Lynch, a doc on Joseph Merrick, the “Eraserhead” soundtrack on CD, the experimental stage musical “Industrial Symphony No. 1” (previously obtainable only on long out-of-print VHS). Then there’s the much-speculated-over “mystery disc,” chock-a-block with snipped “Wild at Heart” footage, shorts, web series episodes (“Rabbits” and “Out Yonder”) and a “Twin Peaks”-era music video. Needless to say, “The Lime Green Set,” which comes in the promised shade of extreme viridian, was created for the dedicated Lynchophiles out there, who’ve probably already cleared shelf space in anticipation for sequel sets in other bright colors built around works from later in the filmmaker’s career. If you’re looking to pick this one up, DavidLynch.com seems to offer the best bargain.

Everyone knows Harry Houdini’s legacy in the world of magic, and documentaries about his life always include newsreel footage of his death defying stunts, but until I heard about Kino’s three-disc “Houdini: The Movie Star” I didn’t even realize that Houdini’s presence on the early silver screen went beyond actualities into the world of fiction. In fact, Houdini made numerous serials and features throughout the 1910s and 20s, and though Kino’s set also includes footage of many of Houdini’s actual tricks, the bulk of the collection’s devoted to the former rather than the latter. They sound freaking awesome; 1919’s “The Master Mystery,” for example, stars Houdini as a government agent who busts up a patent con scheme while escaping dangling-over-vats-of-acid death traps and fighting over crazed robots. And since Houdini had a keen interest in the supernatural and the afterlife, there’s also stuff like “The Man From Beyond” (1922) a feature where he plays a guy frozen in a block of ice, thaws out, and hooks up with the reincarnation of his former flame. Sadly, a lot of this material isn’t intact — the serials are missing numerous chapters — but Kino compiled all the material that does exist and included title cards and stills to bridge the gaps in the storylines.

The definitive Rat Pack movie is a title that, for audiences these days, is far more likely to bring up thoughts of a tuxedoed George Clooney and a tieless Brad Pitt than Ol’ Blue Eyes and Dean Martin. But what’s surprising, watching the 1960 “Ocean’s Eleven,” the highpoint of this four-film collection, are the hints of darkness fluttering around the edge. Soderbergh’s con men ease effortlessly through their multiple-casino heist, but the gang in the original are old army buddies with wives to rescue from stripping, or terminal cancer and families to support, or dead-end careers due to their race. Then again, Soderbergh needed every inch of filmmaking style he could summon just to measure up to the luminescent star power of the Pack at its height: Frank Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, not to mention Angie Dickinson and a cameo from Shirley MacLaine. The Rat Pack members may have been comfortable on camera, but they weren’t always great actors; this box set also includes western comedies “4 for Texas” and “Gunga Din” reworking “Sergeants 3” as well as gangster musical “Robin and the 7 Hoods,” all with their highs and lows, but all, in their capturing of the talent and even more impressive rapport of their performances, ineffably entertaining. This set also come with lobby card reproductions, stills, a deck of Rat Pack cards and commentary tracks on three of the films from Frank Sinatra Jr.

One of the most well-reviewed (“the best that home video has to offer in quality, scholarship and enduring aesthetic interest” raved The New York Times‘ Dave Kehr), not to mention expensive (at almost $250 beans) box sets of the year includes a dozen films from its two titular directors. Only two — 1927’s landmark silent “Sunrise” and 1930’s “City Girl” — come from F.W. Murnau, who died in a car accident in 1931, just five years after emigrating from Hollywood from Germany. The ten other features come from his studiomate at Fox, Frank Borzage, an American who paid close attention to Murnau’s visual style and applied it to his own burgeoning aesthetic in movies like 1927’s “Seventh Heaven.” Though Borzage was more prolific, made more money and remained a key figure in the transitional period between silent and sound cinema, he’s largely forgotten to history (note whose name comes first in the box’s title), a fact this set will hopefully come to rectify. Extras include several documentaries, commentary tracks and a book about the filmmakers and their time at the innovative Fox studio.

Harryhausen! And not the giant Cyclops/dueling skeletons Harryhausen of “The Fantastic Films of Ray Harryhausen” (released back in 2004) — this three-film set offers two-disc versions of the stop-motion master’s greatest work in sci-fi, “20 Million Miles to Earth,” “It Came From Beneath the Sea” and “Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.” In the first feature, a specimen brought back from Venus grows into a gigantic, sulfur-gobbling, elephant-murdering monster that wreaks havoc on Rome (picked because it was where Harryhausen wanted to have his vacation). “It Came From Beneath the Sea” finds a massive radioactive octopus (that, for budgetary reasons, only actually had six tentacles) attacking San Francisco. And “Earth vs. The Flying Saucers” offers an invasion by alien spaceships, effects that were groundbreaking at the time and that are still impressive. Each of the films comes in both the original black and white and colorized editions, and the set includes figurine of the “20 Million Miles to Earth” creature.

Reminders that the ’90s were a thing

Unless you stopped paying attention to the world at large in 1989, you are of course aware that the ’90s are having their pop cultural second coming. Nobody is more acutely aware of this than Dara Katz and Betsy Kenney, two comedians who met doing improv comedy and have just made their Comedy Crib debut with the hilarious ’90s TV throwback series, The Place We Live.

IFC: How would you describe “The Place We Live” to a fancy network executive you just met in an elevator?

Dara: It’s everything you loved–or loved to hate—from Melrose Place and 90210 but condensed to five minutes, funny (on purpose) and totally absurd.

IFC: How would you describe “The Place We Live” to a drunk friend of a friend you met in a bar?

Betsy: “Hey Todd, why don’t you have a sip of water. Also, I think you’ll love The Place We Live because everyone has issues…just like you, Todd.”

IFC: When you were living through the ’90s, did you think it was television’s golden age or the pop culture apocalypse?

Betsy: I wasn’t sure I knew what it was, I just knew I loved it!

Dara: Same. Was just happy that my parents let me watch. But looking back, the ’90s honored The Teen. And for that, it’s the golden age of pop culture.

IFC: Which ’90s shows did you mine for the series, and why?

Betsy: Melrose and 90210 for the most part. If you watch an episode of either of those shows you’ll see they’re a comedic gold mine. In one single episode, they cover serious crimes, drug problems, sex and working in a law firm and/or gallery, all while being young, hot and skinny.

Dara: And almost any series we were watching in the ’90s, Full House, Saved By the Bell, My So Called Life has very similar themes, archetypes and really stupid-intense drama. We took from a lot of places.

IFC: How would you describe each of the show’s characters in terms of their ’90s TV stereotype?

Dara: Autumn (Sunita Mani) is the femme fatale. Robin (Dara Katz) is the book worm (because she wears glasses). Candace (Betsy Kenney) is Corey’s twin and gives great advice and has really great hair. Corey (Casey Jost) is the boy next door/popular guy. Candace and Corey’s parents decided to live in a car so the gang can live in their house. Lee (Jonathan Braylock) is the jock.

IFC: Why do you think the world is ready for this series?

Dara: Because everyone’s feeling major ’90s nostalgia right now, and this is that, on steroids while also being a totally new, silly thing.

Delight in the whole season of The Place We Live right now on IFC’s Comedy Crib. It’ll take you back in all the right ways.

Whips, Chains and Hand Sanitizer

Jenny Jaffe has a lot going on: She’s writing for Disney’s upcoming Big Hero 6: The Series, developing comedy projects with pals at Devastator Press, and she’s straddling the line between S&M and OCD as the creator and star of the sexyish new series Neurotica, which has just made its debut on IFC’s Comedy Crib. Jenny gave us some extremely intimate insight into what makes Neurotica (safely) sizzle…

IFC: How would you describe Neurotica to a fancy network executive you met in an elevator?

Jenny: Neurotica is about a plucky Dominatrix with OCD trying to save her small-town dungeon.

IFC: How would you describe Neurotica to a drunk friend of a friend you met in a bar?

Jenny: Neurotica is about a plucky Dominatrix with OCD trying to save her small-town dungeon. You’re great. We should get coffee sometime. I’m not just saying that. I know other people just say that sometimes but I really feel like we’re going to be friends, you know? Here, what’s your number, I’ll call you so you can have my number!

IFC: What’s your comedy origin story?

Jenny: Since I was a kid I’ve dealt with severe OCD and anxiety. Comedy has always been one of the ways I’ve dealt with that. I honestly just want to help make people feel happy for a few minutes at a time.

IFC: What was the genesis of Neurotica?

Jenny: I’m pretty sure it was a title-first situation. I was coming up with ideas to pitch to a production company a million years ago (this isn’t hyperbole; I am VERY old) and just wrote down “Neurotica”; then it just sort of appeared fully formed. “Neurotica? Oh it’s an over-the-top romantic comedy about a Dominatrix with OCD, of course.” And that just happened to hit the buttons of everything I’m fascinated by.

Jenny: You can use any of their locations but you’ll always forget you have a membership and in a year you’ll be like “jeez why won’t they let me just cancel?”

IFC: Mouths are gross! Why is that?

Jenny: If you had never seen a mouth before and I was like “it’s a wet flesh cave with sharp parts that lives in your face”, it would sound like Cronenberg-ian body horror. All body parts are horrifying. I’m kind of rooting for the singularity, I’d feel way better if I was just a consciousness in a cloud.

Thoughts like those are normal. After all, we tend to remember lasting psychological trauma more vividly than fleeting joy. But if you dig deep, you’ll rediscover that the ’90s gave us so much to fondly revisit. Consider the four pillars of true ’90s culture.

Boy Bands

We all pretended to hate them, but watch us come alive at a karaoke bar when “I Want It That Way” comes on. Arguably more influential than Brit Pop and Grunge put together, because hello – Justin Timberlake. He’s a legitimate cultural gem.

Man-Child Movies

Adam Sandler is just behind The Simpsons in terms of his influence on humor. Somehow his man-child schtick didn’t get old until the aughts, and his success in that arena ushered in a wave of other man-child movies from fellow ’90s comedians. RIP Chris Farley (and WTF Rob Schneider).

Teen Angst

In horror, dramas, comedies, and everything in between: Troubled teens! Getting into trouble! Who couldn’t relate to their First World problems, plaid flannels, and lose grasp of the internet?

Mainstream Nihilism

From the Coen Bros to Fincher to Tarantino, filmmakers on the verge of explosive popularity seemed interested in one thing: mind f*cking their audiences by putting characters in situations (and plot lines) beyond anyone’s control.

Feeling better about that walk down memory lane? Good. Enjoy the revival.